Customer story: Civil Aviation Safety Authority, AU

Upholding principles

The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) are the authority in charge of regulating civil aviation in Australia. They issue licenses, enforce safety requirements and protocols and ensure environmental protections against aircraft pollution are in place.

They take pride in being transparent in their processes and legislations, and for making decisions that serve the best interests of their stakeholders while keeping Australian aviation up to safety standards.

Part of their commitment to transparency includes a robust consultation process. Regulatory bodies need to regularly consult their stakeholders on the decisions that they make. CASA run about two consultations a month.

Maintaining accountability

CASA were looking for a consultation tool that would support their need to be fully accountable for their actions. They wanted for the results and ensuing actions following a consultation to be easily accessible - they didn’t want their stakeholders to have to hunt for feedback after they submitted their views.

They opted for Citizen Space

They decided to opt for Citizen Space. A powerful consultation tool, it has built-in features that promote openness and accountability in all stages of consultation. It aligned closely with CASA’s priorities and gave them the ability to consult with confidence. Two features stood out: response publishing, and ‘We Asked, You Said, We Did’.

Response publishing is a feature whereby site administrators can publish respondents’ submissions on the consultation overview page, where consent has been given to do so. The ability for respondents to view their peers’ views on a public web page increases the obligation on an organisations’ part to fully take those views into account and respond accordingly.

CASA do this by using Citizen Space’s ‘We Asked, You Said, We Did’ feature. This is a section on an organisation’s Consultation Hub where respondents can easily see summarised information on what sort of responses were received and how they impacted the organisation’s decision. Using these feature means that CASA are able to demonstrate that they recognise the importance of keeping their processes open and transparent, and that their stakeholders can easily see how their decisions are made. This in turn increases trust that the organisation has their best interests at heart.